


Maybe It's You

by AcaigaWrites



Category: Halo (Video Games) & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-14
Updated: 2019-09-21
Packaged: 2020-10-18 16:24:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20642147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AcaigaWrites/pseuds/AcaigaWrites
Summary: A series of Fred/Veta oneshots written from prompts. Each chapter's title contains the prompt.





	1. "It's okay. I couldn't sleep anyway."

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Thalius](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thalius/gifts).

> In which Veta overworks herself, and Fred is there to help.

She rubbed at her tired eyes, groaning in defeated frustration as she continued to see her mission report in double. Glancing out of the prefab window, she saw nothing but the black silhouette of a tree, barely visible on a backdrop of night sky. It was well past three-thirty in the morning, according to her datapad's clock, though she could be reading it wrong. Not sleeping for forty-eight hours tended to give her a couple of performance errors.

Veta reached for her mug and brought it to her mouth, cringing in distaste when she realised how cold the coffee had gotten. She leant forward, meaning to place the mug back down again, and instead dropped it to the ground.

Smashing it with a crash loud enough to wake him up.

She cursed, setting the datapad aside and getting up to pick up the larger pieces of ceramic from the puddle on the floor. Not only was she never going to finish this stupid mission update, but now it was likely that sleep was going to be put off for yet another day. Usually she'd just grab out the vacuum, but there was no need to wake Fred if she could help it. That is, assuming he hadn't been startled awake already.

Collecting up the last of the bigger shards, she hissed as it caught on her palm, cutting into her skin. "Shit!"

It was deep, though probably not enough to warrant anything more than some thin butterfly stitches. She muttered to herself under her breath, beyond irritated with herself and with this god-forsaken mission, and was so wrapped up in her thoughts that she didn't even notice a shirtless and seven-foot Spartan before she bumped straight into him.

"Lopis, it's almost four - is... everything okay?" Fred helped her regain her balance, then paused as he saw the way she had pulled her sleeve up, covering her left palm. "Is that blood?"

"It's nothing, just a little cut," she said. "Dropped my coffee, smashed the mug."

"Can I take a look?"

She frowned. She could do her own first-aid; it wasn't necessarily something you needed to have sorted for you at thirty. But come to think of it, she was dog-tired, and if there was any small shards left in there, she'd rather have someone else remove them for her. "Sure. Thanks."

Taking a seat back on the couch away from the puddle on the floor - something Veta vowed to deal with after she'd had at least a couple hours' sleep - and pulled back her sleeve. Fred moved the coffee table back to make room, then sat cross-legged in front of her. Half of Veta's mind was thinking about just how funny it was to see a Spartan sat with their legs crossed, and the other was focused on the fact that even sat on the ground, Fred dwarfed her.

They sat together in the quiet, and Veta felt like she wanted to say something very particular, but couldn't figure out what. With a tenderness she had seen in no other Spartan but him, Fred took her hand with its palm face-up. The first-aid kit rested on his knee, and from it he took an antiseptic wipe and - as she'd thought about earlier - some butterfly stitch packets. He dabbed at the laceration with care, and froze when she winced.

"Sorry," he murmured softly, and rubbed his thumb against the side of hers. She smiled at him, realising just how much more awake she felt.

"It's fine," she returned. "Look, Fred, I'm sorry for waking you up."

"It's okay." He shook his head. "I couldn't sleep anyway."

Veta frowned in concern. "Do you want to talk about it? I mean, you don't have to, but..."

He paused in his ministrations to look at her, and she held his gaze. "No, that's okay, but thank you. Another time though. Promise."

After a moment she caught herself thinking about how pretty his eyes were - that odd combination of blue and green - and snapped herself out of it when she realised that neither had spoken, nor broken eye-contact. His thumb, however, was still stroking the side of her palm, and they were both painfully conscious of it.

And neither would move away.

Fred closed the cut over with the butterfly stitches, making sure every corner was stuck down so they wouldn't peel away. "There you go."

"Thank you," she said quietly, because anything beyond a whisper sounded too loud at this time.

Fred's face flushed at her sincerity, and she felt her heart skip a little. "Lopis-"

"Veta," she corrected. "Just Veta, Fred."

"Veta," he echoed. "You should... you should get some sleep. We don't have to be up for a while. I'll finish the report for you."

"You're not allowed to do that," she pointed out, and was rewarded with a little smile.

"What they don't know won't hurt them." Fred packed away the first-aid kit as he stood, then pushed the coffee table back to its original position. He hung there for a moment, almost awkwardly, but then Veta was shifting up on the sofa to make more room for him.

"Come sit," she invited, and rolled her eyes at the Spartan's hesitation. "Fred, come sit. It's only an hour or two before we're supposed to be up anyway."

"I... fine. Give me a minute."

Moments later, Fred returned with a bundle in his arms, much to Veta's confusion. A blanket?

"Here," he said. "If we're staying up. Thought you'd like it for warmth."

Veta waited for him to take a seat, then pulled the blanket over herself. It wasn't big enough to stretch across the sofa, and she definitely wasn't willing to be a blanket-hog. "Do you mind if I... y'know." She gestured to the spot closer to him.

"Of course," Fred said, a little quickly. "I mean, that's fine."

She shifted closer, so that her shoulder was brushing his bicep, and wrapped the blanket over the both of them. Veta could feel the tension in his muscles, and was wondering if she'd overstepped her boundaries before his arm lifted. He tentatively settled it around her shoulders, not letting on any pressure.

"Fred," she murmured. "You can relax."

He let out a shuddering breath, and let the weight of his arm rest completely around her. Veta could see just how big of a deal it was for him to both openly express and accept any affectionate gestures. She understood, but also empathised; it had taken her over a decade to do the same after the terrible ordeal in her youth.

She pressed herself into his side, then slung an arm over his stomach in an attempt to make herself more comfortable. "Are you sure this is okay?"

Fred nodded, and she could feel the rigidity dissipating from him. On the coffee table, the datapad lay abandoned, all thoughts of reports cast away.

* * *

Fred woke with the sun streaming through the windows, blaring directly into his eyes. He squinted a little, getting his bearings and acknowledging where exactly he was. His heart gave a sudden lurch in his ribcage as he realised that Lopis was beside him on the couch, her legs tangled with his and her face pressed into his bare chest until all he could see was dark hair.

At some point in the night they must have fallen asleep together. This was beyond improper, Fred knew, and there were probably rules forbidding this sort of thing. Yet, despite the guilt of it all, he couldn't bring himself to move, couldn't bring himself to deny this sort of contact. Maybe it was just Lopis.

She wasn't awake yet, and he saw no reason fit to wake her for. Instead, he closed his eyes against the morning light, and left his arms wrapped tightly around her.

The datapad lay forgotten.


	2. "I thought I'd lost you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on the prompt "I Thought I'd Lost You."

Veta jumped from the platform and hit the ground running, ducking fire and breathing fast.

Twelve minutes until they reached the evac point, if they kept the same pace. Her lungs were already burning, and she could only hope that she wouldn't fall behind her teammates. In all fairness, she didn't have the same physical augmentations as her Spartan allies; her breaking point would come much quicker than theirs.

She followed closely behind Mark, who had taken point, and held fast to the battle rifle she now had tightly gripped in her hand. He would glance back every now and then, as if checking to make sure she was still keeping rank with them. She appreciated the concern, but she wasn't exactly a pushover. Her legs were on fire and she was becoming short of breath, true enough, but she wasn't struggling too much.

A glance to her right gave her Fred and Kelly's position several metres away. Linda, Veta knew, would be nearby, elusive and quick-witted as ever. Kelly eyed two targets on the left of the dusty boulevard, ill-concealed behind a terraced building's entrance pillars, and took them both out with two impeccably placed shots. Hopefully, Linda would be dealing with any fellow snipers before they happened to get lucky.

"Hey, Mom," Olivia called from Veta's left, "you good?"

"Never better," Veta managed out, a little more out of breath than she'd like to admit.

Olivia's legs were longer, faster, stronger, but she slowed to keep behind Veta regardless. "Tell me when you're gonna tire out."

"Won't," Veta panted, and it felt like a lie. They'd been running for a very, very long while now.

Fred cast his glance at her, caught her eye as she looked back. He signalled questioningly to her, asking the same as Olivia, and she signalled back with 'OK'. She appreciated the concern from all of them, _really_, but they needed to stop and focus on the people firing at them instead.

She was so focused on keeping up that she didn't hear Ash's voice yelling over the comms, didn't hear nor heed his warnings.

And in a flash, the world went white.

* * *

For several seconds, she was blind.

Smoke and dust clouded her vision, stifling the air in her lungs and searing into her eyes. A ringing resounded in her ears, in her brain, and drum beats pounded relentlessly against the sides of her skull. A wet, trickling sensation and an incessant throbbing from her temple. She tried to move, tried to comprehend what the hell had happened, but all she could manage was a moan of agony as the world spun out of her control once again.

A firefight. A grenade. An explosion.

She was dimly aware of someone shouting at her, a mantra, repeated over and over, but it didn't register properly until it was right beside her. Her name, now. Lopis, Lopis, Lopis. It battled with the deafening ringing, a cacophony in her head, and she groaned.

A burdening, heavy weight lifted from her back- one she hadn't even noticed until it was gone - and she sucked in a breath of what should have been air, but felt instead like dirt in her throat. Her vision still out for the most part, she fumbled on weak arms for the ground beneath her, and dry-heaved, dispelling nothing but dust.

"_-opis. Lopis. Veta, we've got to move_."

Her hand lifted shakily to her head, coming away from her temple slick with blood, only just visible as her sight struggled. She rubbed at her eyes, blinking hard, willing her body to move. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't do it. She managed to raise herself to her knees, but the ground didn't stay still long enough, and she collapsed once again.

As armour-encased arms lifted her against a broad chest, her consciousness slipped away entirely.

* * *

Fred-104 sat in the med-bay with his head in his hands.

It had been a near-miss; a lucky escape with a well-placed grenade that could very nearly have taken out both Lopis and Ash. Ash's armour was undoubtedly more resistant than Lopis', and it had been his quick thinking that had saved their lives. By seizing her and diving sideways, Ash had taken the brunt of the blast against his armour.

Still, Lopis hadn't come out unharmed. While the initial blast hadn't killed her, the impact on the ground after had taken its toll. Her head had struck the rock hard enough to give her a solid concussion and significant blood loss from a head-wound, and she'd inhaled a lot of dust. She'd needed stitches and some light painkillers, but that didn't matter. She was okay. Living, breathing.

She was sleeping now, not unconscious, and for that he was endlessly grateful. Head wounds could be deceptive at the best of times, but she wasn't displaying anything out of the ordinary. It was just Lopis' luck to have come out of the firefight like this, when everyone else had come out almost entirely unscathed. Even Ash, who had volunteered as a human shield for her, had come away with only a few minor scrapes.

Seeing her like that... so vulnerable and endangered. It terrified him - him, a Spartan.

"Is she doing okay?"

Fred turned to see Olivia, Mark and Ash hovering by the doorway, looking concerned. "She's alright. Just resting now. That was quick thinking, Ash."

"Thanks, LT."

"Have you spoken to her yet?" Mark asked.

"Not yet," Fred said, and rubbed at the back of his head. "I was only allowed in half hour ago, and she was asleep when I got here."

"She's tough stuff. She'll be fine," Olivia said, walking forward. She approached Lopis' bedside, near where Fred was sat, and touched the woman's shoulder in an affectionate gesture. "If she wakes up while you're still here, give her our best."

"I'll wait here 'til she's awake," Fred nodded. The Gammas exchanged a look with one another.

"Take care of her, LT," Mark remarked, and he was grinning. With that, the three of them retreated from the room. Fred looked down at Lopis' sleeping form, heaved a sigh, and released the tension from his shoulders. The Mjolnir had been swapped out for more relaxed attire - namely, slacks and a shirt - so he fit a little easier into the chair he'd been using for the past half hour.

"...Hey." A hoarse voice broke the quiet of the med-bay, and Fred's gaze snapped up to meet Lopis' as her eyes blinked, adjusting to the light. She smiled at him, and he felt himself smiling back at her. There were stitches across a deep gash at her right temple, and several more at the cheekbone on the same side. Despite looking like she'd been through the ringer, she was almost fine.

"How are you feeling?"

"Like hell," she replied. "Just my head, that's all. Just a rough concussion, they said."

"Yeah," Fred said, a little distracted. "Concussion."

He found his hand subconsciously reaching for hers where it lay atop the blanket over her stomach, and almost jolted when she lifted her own to meet it. His hand completely dwarfed hers, and he would've been thinking more on that, had he not been so preoccupied with the fact that she was touching him like this at all. That she was allowing it.

"Worried about me, were you?" She teased, and his face warmed.

He looked at their hands, saw how their fingers had intertwined. His thumb moved slowly and rhythmically over the back of her hand. "I... You had me worried. I thought I'd lost you. Not that... not that you're mine to lose, but-"

"Fred," Lopis murmured, "you didn't. I'm fine. We've had near misses before, right? This one's no different. Just hit a little closer to home this time."

"I don't like feeling like that." Fred shook his head. "I've seen friends die, had people die under my command, but this... I don't know."

"It's the line of work," Lopis reminded him. "I know that. You know that. But, if it makes you feel better, I'll try harder next time. Not to get blown up, that is."

"You'd better," Fred smiled gently, his chest feeling incrementally lighter. "I should probably leave you to get more rest. I just wanted to check up on you."

Lopis squeezed at his fingers. "You don't have to leave. You're welcome to stay here for a bit."

Fred's chest tightened, not unpleasantly. "I wish I could. Unfortunately, some of us have to file mission reports. I'd better leave you to it for now. I'll come back later with a coffee or tea or something."

"Okay," Lopis relented. "Long as you do."

Before Fred released her hand, Lopis had lifted his hand to her lips, her dark eyes never leaving his. Fred's chest made the tightening sensation once more, and in a return gesture, he leaned over to press a feather-light kiss against Lopis' forehead. His face was on fire, but he wasn't going to chicken on something like this. Not with her.

He withdrew, and with one more lingering look, he left the med-bay.


End file.
